What the hell...

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

Does anyone know what in the holy hell is going on in the blocks from Elm to Orchard and down to Miller Street?? My street was blocked off by cop cars for two blocks, and there are paddywagons, fire trucks, EMT vehicles and so forth everywhere in that area. I asked one of them if I could park nearby and what was going on and predictably, he said, "Go around. You don't want to be here right now. Nothing's happened." No, of course nothing's happened, asshole, that's why there are about 40 city officials milling around flashing their lights.

Comments

[ron_newman]

the city of Cambridge has been doing some sewer work around Beech and Orchard streets, requiring closure of various streets and sidewalks. But this sounds unrelated, unless someone struck a gas line.

[spatch]

Well, sure, if the cop had said "Oh, man, there's a triple homicide over there, heads lopped off and just lying around, entrails dangling from the front porch railing, Fiona Apple lyrics scrawled in blood all over the walls, it's totally wicked!" then you and every other rubbernecker would crowd the scene, hold your cameraphones up, and hamper any sort of emergency efforts.

Seriously, I don't know what's going on, but I'd let 'em do their work and try to get things back to normal, and then read about it in tomorrow's paper.

[spatch]

And if someone has struck a gas line, yeah, you really don't wanna be around that.

[ron_newman]

did you happen to notice whether the police and fire vehicles belonged to Cambridge or to Somerville? (of course, in a big enough emergency, both would probably respond)

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

Not sure, but the activity is all on the Cambridge side of the divide. I live at Orchard and Russell, right on the Cambridge/Somerville border, which was why I was so concerned. I couldn't park in front of my house!

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, true, but it would have been nice to be told something other than "go away" when I was trying to get to my own *house*. You know, either "You can park over there, sure, and don't worry," or "Better not go home right now because the street might blow up." You know, any information at all. :)

[ron_newman]

what I'd suggest is to give a shout-out to the folks at The Alewife and the Cambridge Chronicle, so they can cover it as a news story. They may not even know about it right now, since I doubt that they read LJ.

[spatch]

Ah. Not getting home is a big ol' problem. I thought you was just hangin round. Has it abated since?

[yangelina.livejournal.com]

Did you find out what happened? More importantly, I hope you were able to get home.

MBTA bus hit pedestrian

[m-b-w.livejournal.com]

According to the Somerville Journal, the elderly woman who was hit is "severely injured." I also heard that the bus driver had a heart attack but have not read that anywhere. The roads are now open.

Re: MBTA bus hit pedestrian

[ron_newman]

but ... that accident happened yesterday. The post you are responding to was made on Tuesday.

[cos]

One of the things I miss about working for the campus police at Brandeis when I was an undergrad, as their computer operator, was that any time there were flashy lights, or a big scandal, or an enigmatic rumor of something happening, I pretty much always got to read about it later while patching up their incident report files.

One of the things I don't miss, was knowing what lay behind all these things that people were talking about, and not being able to tell them any of it (and mostly not even letting on that I knew anything about it).